


Et Cetera, Et Cetera

by FinAmour, unicornpoe



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Always1895 Johnlock Fic Prompt Challenge, And really soft, Asdfghjkl, Bearded John Watson, Crack, Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Humor, It's just really silly, John is kind of a brat too, John's Beard, Kissing, M/M, No tea was harmed in the making of this fic, Prompt Fill, References to 1990s fashion, References to zesty summer rainforests, Romantic John Watson, Romantic Sherlock, Scheming Sherlock, Sherlock is a Brat, Sherlock is really turned on by the beard, So much kissing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Walrus jokes, We don't even know what happened here, cuteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 00:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15718404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinAmour/pseuds/FinAmour, https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornpoe/pseuds/unicornpoe
Summary: Sherlock comes across some old photos of John with a beard. Sherlock is somewhat... affected.Sherlock wants John to grow the beard back. John doesn't like the idea.Sherlock devises an ingenious plan.***“I think you should grow the beard back, John,” Sherlock states finally, using the most official-sounding voice he can.“No way in Hell,” John says promptly. “What would you like for dinner?”“Beard,” Sherlock responds just as promptly, because he’s apparently forgotten every other word in every language.“Spaghetti, then?” John turns to walk away. He’s not giving in to Sherlock’s shit. Not this time.





	Et Cetera, Et Cetera

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smollsherl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smollsherl/gifts).



> This is a gift for our friend [smollsherl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smollsherl), who came up with the prompt we used for the ending of the story: 
> 
> "Not to be nsfw but I'd love to see Sherlock Holmes cup John Watson’s face with his hands and give him soft kisses all over his face and tell him how beautiful every detail of his face is."
> 
> We love you, Alita! <3

John has had a long week at work. He is very much looking forward to going home and kissing Sherlock, to listening to Sherlock play his violin while he broods, and to enjoying his tea and his boring news articles with Sherlock at his side.

So at Baker Street, after John kisses Sherlock and listens to him play his violin while he broods, he enjoys his tea and his boring news articles with Sherlock at his side in the sitting room. And while Sherlock lies across the room from him on the sofa, staring down at his mobile phone intently, John can’t help but notice (though he is pretending to be interested in a new study about free-range ostrich farming) that Sherlock has a suspicious grin on his face.

It’s a grin that John recognises: the one Sherlock wears when he’s doing something John might consider to be mildly infuriating.

John sets his newspaper down as non-threateningly as possible. Sometimes it’s best to catch Sherlock off guard with these sorts of questions. “Sherlock,” John asks casually. “Are you doing something that I might consider to be mildly infuriating?”

“Science experiment,” Sherlock replies in a casual, rehearsed manner as he swipes one finger deliberately across the screen of the phone, grinning even more widely. It’s his go-to response when he’s attempting to make John leave him alone, which means he is _definitely_ doing something John would consider to be mildly infuriating.

“You _definitely_ are.” John sits forward in his chair, bracing his hands on his knees. “I know you, Sherlock. So why don’t you just go ahead and tell me what it is?”

“The sun with the movement of the revolving of the universe and space, et cetera, et cetera,” Sherlock mumbles. He doesn’t look up from the phone at all, and that means he’s _definitely definitely_ doing something that John would consider mildly infuriating, which John finds mildly infuriating, too.

John peers over, attempting to look at Sherlock’s phone as best he can without actually leaving his chair, because leaving his chair would be the most infuriating thing of all.

That’s when he notices it’s not _actually_ Sherlock’s phone.

John reaches into his pocket, where his own phone had been no fewer than twenty minutes before, and tries to figure out how Sherlock could possibly have pickpocketed it from the other side of the room. “Sherlock. _How_ did you—?” John sighs with resignation, because he knows there’s really never any point in asking.

There’s a tiny little smirk hovering near the corners of Sherlock’s mouth, a satisfied glint in the odd lightness of his eyes that unsettles John. “Science experiment,” he repeats in a robotic tone, which means he’s not listening to John’s words in the slightest, and he’s absolutely for _sure_ doing something that John would find mildly infuriating, but he looks beautiful nonetheless _._

“I believe it’s due to the compounds and the atomic weight of… mmmf,” Sherlock offhandedly remarks, a response to a question John hadn’t even asked, and he rolls over so that John can only see his back. Heaving a long-suffering sigh, John finally stands up from his comfortable chair and boring news articles to drag himself across the room.

Sherlock panics as he approaches, fumbling at the phone, nearly dropping it as he attempts to switch it off. In order to recover from this uncharacteristic lack of grace, he hides the phone between the sofa cushions in a manner that he probably expects is subtle.

John lifts an eyebrow and crosses his arms across his chest, pursing his lips together. “Not subtle at all, Sherlock,” he deadpans. Sherlock remains still, curled up on his side and acting like John isn’t less than two feet away from him. John sighs and holds out a hand. “Give me my phone.”

Sherlock finally peeks over his shoulder, flashing John one of his charming, gorgeous smiles that says, _we don’t have to keep talking about this anymore, John, because you love me and you think I’m adorable._ “Experiment results. Data, and so on and so forth,” he croons sweetly, and John nearly gives in, because that _always_ bloody works.

Today, however, John is feeling slightly less indulgent than usual. Probably because it’s flu season, and he got sneezed on a few too many times at work. “The charm is not going to work on me today, Sherlock.” He clears his throat and uses his deepest, most commanding voice. “Now give me my phone back.”

Sherlock exhales an overly dramatic sigh and reaches down into the cushions, pulling the phone back out and handing it to John without saying a word. Because _that_ tone of voice always bloody works, too. When John uses _that_ tone of voice, Sherlock finds John _far too attractive_ to say no.

“Care to tell me what you were looking at?” John asks as he takes the phone, arching an eyebrow as Sherlock repositions himself back into a fetal position on the sofa. Sherlock’s acting strange. He always acts strange, of course, but this is somehow different. Somehow much more suspicious than usual.

“I found some old photos of you,” Sherlock admits after a moment of stubborn silence, his voice almost small and muffled by the cushion he’s facing. “I believe they may have been taken during your university days at Bart’s.”

John flushes the tiniest bit with embarrassment, remembering the photos that Bill Murray had sent him a few days prior, and remembering how they had displayed some of his more regrettable fashion choices. And, well, his more regrettable...life choices. Those days had been his “socially formative” years. He’s suddenly thankful that Sherlock isn’t facing him, so that he can’t deduce how embarrassed he is. Although Sherlock can probably do that, anyway.

Ready to pacify Sherlock in any way he may need to (whether it’s because he’d seen a picture of John with some attractive woman on his arm or with some unattractive gold jewelry in one ear), John softens his stature and bends over for a kiss on Sherlock’s cheek. After all, it’s never pleasant to see old photos of your lover making embarrassing fashion choices, is it?

“Oh, _those_ photos,” he says dismissively against Sherlock’s cheekbone as he kisses it lightly. Sherlock’s skin is smooth and soft beneath his lips.  “Had a drink with Bill the other night, and we were reminiscing, and he sent me some old pictures—”

_“John,”_ Sherlock interrupts urgently. His voice is steady, but he squirms the tiniest bit where he lies. “Back then, you... had a _beard.”_

John nearly loses his balance and topples over onto him. Oh yeah. The beard. He’d nearly forgotten about that particular fashion choice. Or blocked it, more like.  “Erm. Yeah. I did, didn’t I?”

John braces himself for what Sherlock is going to say, having sudden, warlike flashbacks of the incessant teasing he’d endured the last time he’d grown facial hair.  (The moustache.) (What had John actually been thinking?) (He clearly couldn’t function properly without his Sherlock around.)

John stands back up, steadying himself and preparing to defend his twenty year-old alter ego against Sherlock’s onslaught of insults. “Go on, then,” he says, hiding his hesitance behind a challenge. “Tell me how horrible it looked.”

Sherlock leans on to his right arm and spins himself onto his back, spreading himself across the cushions and settling his curly head of hair on the arm of the sofa. He raises his eyes and looks directly at John, his expression wide-eyed and fascinated, as though John were some beautiful exhibit at a museum. “Not at all, John. It looked... _quite_ nice.”

John shakes his head and stares down at Sherlock incredulously. “Right,” he says on a breath of laughter. “And next, you’re going to ask me how many pairs of flannel shirts I owned, or how I managed to get all of those rips and holes in my jeans. It was a fashion phase called grunge, Sherlock. Everyone wanted to be Kurt Cobain back then.”

“Kirk _who?”_ Sherlock asks, squinting at him, because he apparently lived at the bottom of a well for the entirety of the nineties. Or, more realistically, was locked away in a lab somewhere experimenting. Lines of confusion form on his features that John finds so infuriatingly adorable, and he just wants to kiss them to make them go away, but he resists.

“I wasn’t paying attention to your clothing, John,” Sherlock says. “I was far too distracted by the beard.”

John rolls his eyes, grinning. He can’t say he doesn’t sort of enjoy seeing Sherlock affected like this. Well. When it’s _John_ that’s doing the affecting, that is. “Sure, okay. Yeah,” he teases. “You like the beard because it covered half of my face, right?”

Exasperated, Sherlock sighs. He finds it utterly ridiculous that John doesn’t see just how attractive he truly is. He sits up and reaches to cup John’s face in his hands, looking him directly in the eye, because when he does that, John listens. John clasps Sherlock’s wrists loosely. “Why on Earth would you think covering your face would be a good thing, John?” Sherlock asks, running his thumbs over John’s jawline. John’s five-o’clock shadow has formed by now, and Sherlock finds himself deeply fascinated by it.

John’s heart warms at Sherlock’s words, and dammit, even though Sherlock has been mildly infuriating all evening, he smiles. There are times when John physically cannot stop himself from kissing Sherlock, and this just happens to be one of those times.

“Why do you always know exactly what to say to get yourself out of trouble, you git?” he asks with an annoyance that he doesn’t really feel as he bends down and places a soft peck on Sherlock’s lips.

Sherlock leans forward into the kiss with a satisfied smile, humming with contentment. “It can likely be attributed to the fact that you have very regular and very enjoyable sex with me,” he says matter-of-factly as John pulls away.

John lets his arms settle at his sides and laughs, because Sherlock is probably right. He usually is.

Sherlock’s hands fall from John’s face to rest in his lap, and his eyes shift to the ground as he clears his throat pointedly. There is a question he wants to ask on the tip of his tongue.

John braces himself again.

“Have you considered growing the beard back?” Sherlock asks, probably thinking, again, that he’s being subtle. He’s really not.

John frowns at him. “Nope.”

“I see.” Sherlock shifts a little bit, and considers his words carefully, because, to be quite honest, this may be the most important conversation of his and John’s relationship. Aesthetic appeal is at stake, after all; and besides, Sherlock _needs_ John to grow back the beard. It is an actual requirement. He literally might die without it. For real.

“I think you should grow the beard back, John,” he states finally, using the most official-sounding voice he can.  

“No way in Hell,” John says promptly. “What would you like for dinner?”

“Beard,” Sherlock responds just as promptly, because he’s apparently forgotten every other word in every language.

“Spaghetti, then?” John turns to walk away. He’s not giving in to Sherlock’s shit. Not this time.

_“John,”_ Sherlock whines, grabbing John’s hand to keep him from going, because he’s through with trying to be subtle. John halts in his tracks. “You can’t just _change_ the subject to pasta and expect me to move on. That’s completely preposterous, and unfair of you to ask of me.”

“I certainly can, if I’m finished talking about the subject at hand,” John responds calmly, turning back to Sherlock. His stomach growls. “I’m not going to grow more facial hair, okay? You may think you’d like it, but it will only allow you the opportunity to tease me continuously.”

“I do that anyway, John,” Sherlock notes earnestly. “It’s easy to do, you know.”

“Sherlock.” John stares at him blankly, and prays to some unnamed mythical creature for patience. If only mythical creatures were more reliable. “When I grew the moustache, you wouldn’t let me hear the end of it.”

“That was _different,”_ Sherlock says, because it’s _obvious_ that it was.

“Different. In _what way_ _?”_  John inquires, because it’s not obvious to him.

Sherlock reaches out and takes John’s other hand, but John remains stiff and annoyed. Sherlock shifts himself forward until their bodies are aligned, and pulls John’s resistant body closer. “You looked incredibly attractive with the beard, John,” he purrs, turning his head to rest his cheek onto John’s abdomen.

Against John’s will, his left hand lifts and burrows itself into the nest of curls gracing Sherlock’s head.

“I can’t describe it,” Sherlock continues. “The beard...it just… does something to me. Something primordial, and...” he pauses, wrapping his arms around John’s waist and breathing him in with a big, contented gasp.

John sighs. He tilts his head down and smiles at the man beneath him—the infuriating, spoiled, wonderful man he loves—as Sherlock presses his cheek further into John’s stomach, burying his nose in the warm folds of John’s jumper.

“Sherlock,” John whispers, because he’s powerless in the face of Sherlock Holmes. As always.

“—and with the moustache, John, you resembled a hot-tempered walrus in an ill-tailored suit jacket,” Sherlock concludes pleasantly, his tone muffled against John’s stomach.

“And _that’s_ why the answer is no,” John says. He abruptly yanks himself out of Sherlock’s arms and stomps into the kitchen to make spaghetti.

Sherlock watches John go, his expression muddled with confusion. But rather than wasting his precious brain power to determine what he’d said to anger John so much, he flings himself dramatically onto the sofa, arms crossed, considering different ideas.

And then he gets a really good one.

***

Early Monday morning, as John gets ready for work, he goes through his typical routine. Picks out his clothes, steps into the shower, out of the shower, dries off and wraps a towel around his waist. Combs his hair, brushes his teeth, applies deodorant. Covers his face in shaving cream and reaches into the cabinet for his razor, and…

The razor isn’t there.

No razors in the cabinet, no razors in the drawer. None on the shelf, none in his toiletry bag, none in the shower.

He heaves a sigh and glances at his reflection, his cheeks and chin and jaw covered with frothy white foam.

“Sherlock, what have you done with my razors?” he calls out to the next room.

No answer.

John opens the bathroom door and leans out to see Sherlock sitting at the kitchen table sipping his tea and reading his e-mail and not holding an armful of razors and _not answering him._

_“Sherlock,”_ he repeats gruffly. “My _razors?”_

“Science experiment,” Sherlock flatly replies without looking up. “Data, et cetera et cetera, for science.”

John sighs again, walking with heavy steps over to the table where Sherlock sits. As he approaches, Sherlock’s eyes lift, venturing over John’s figure, which is scarcely covered in the small towel wrapped around his waist.

Now that John has Sherlock’s attention, he uses this opportunity to attempt to elicit a real response.

“Sherlock, where are all of my razors?” he asks again.

“Don’t know,” Sherlock says distractedly as he eyes John’s smooth, glistening upper body and swallows. “Have you looked in the downstairs bins?”

John eyes him back, watching the muscles shift in his long, white throat. He’s also distracted, but he’s used to that. “Did you, erm... throw them out?” he asks, steadying his voice.

“John,” Sherlock says in a hurt tone, his face open and innocent-looking as he finally meets John’s eyes over the computer screen. “Why would you assume _I_ was the one who threw them out?”

_Why wouldn’t I?_ John thinks.

“Sherlock.” John’s tone grows impatient.  “Who else _could_ it have been?” The shaving cream is starting to feel sticky as it dries on John’s cheeks—an acutely uncomfortable feeling.

“Mrs. Hudson does crazy things when she’s taken her herbal soothers, you know,” Sherlock responds, looking back at his computer screen with vague disappointment, because half-clothed John isn’t quite as sexy when he’s angry at him.

John crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ve got work, Sherlock, and I really need to shave. Can you spare one of your razors?”

Sherlock’s eyes fly back to John. He knows that under that ridiculous layer of shaving cream, John has what he considers to be a very unseemly scruff growing from where he hasn’t shaved all weekend. John thinks that it will scare his patients off. Sherlock thinks it’s rather adorable.

“Of course I don’t,” Sherlock scoffs, deeply offended. “I don’t use _disposable_ razors, John.”

“Of course you bloody don’t,” John responds, rolling his eyes.

“Hmm,” Sherlock replies. The sound is more judgmental than any words he could have spoken. “Why are you so desperate for a shave, John?”

Annoyed, John huffs and turns without giving an answer. He supposes he’ll just have to leave early to pick up some more razors on his way to work, and shave in the loo of the office. Gross.

_“Apparently,”_ John says, his fingers hovering at the side of his head to form demonstrative “air quotes”— “people prefer their doctors clean shaven.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes at him and purses his lips together. Who the hell would have made a statement as ridiculous as that one? “Well _I_ prefer _my_ doctors to be _well-mannered_ and _not so sarcastic_.” He mumbles this loudly enough that he knows John has heard him.

“No you don’t,” John calls out as he storms off, and he’s also probably right.

“More tea, John,” Sherlock calls back.

John laughs with nearly-hysterical disbelief, sticking out an arm and blatantly knocking the empty tea tray onto the floor on his way out of the room. That’ll show him.

Sherlock regards the mess over the lid of the laptop—a mess which he will _definitely not_ be cleaning up— before sighing and going back to his spreadsheet.

***

John furiously wipes his face, furiously gets dressed, and furiously does practically everything, because Sherlock has made him _furious._ He furiously walks into the kitchen to pack his lunch, and as he does, he very nearly slips and falls onto his arse.

“What. The. Fuck,” he says in what he thinks is an admirably calm voice, steadying himself as he looks down to see the mysterious slick, foamy pile which had nearly killed him.

And then he realises what he’s looking at.

Every single bottle of shaving cream that they own—as well as a few that John has never even seen before—is scattered across the floor. The large white puddle of foam on the lino extends gloppily across the room.

Sherlock is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the kitchen looking dazzled and spellbound and insane. “John!” He trills, beaming at John with all the blinding brilliance of a small sun. His eyes are wide and fervent and blue and so, so eager. “Science is fun!”

“Sherlock.” John does his best to keep his tone eternally even. “I almost broke my tailbone on this, this—”  He doesn’t know _what_ it is, exactly. He carefully takes three deep breaths in, and carefully lets three deep breaths out. Just the way his therapist had told him to do before he’d fired her for always telling him to do dumb, unhelpful things.

“But you didn’t _actually_ break anything, did you?” Sherlock’s shoulders droop a little bit, the blazing smile fading fast. There is a smudge of shaving cream across his left cheekbone, and even in his anger, John has to fight the urge to lean down and carefully wipe it away.

“Besides,” Sherlock continues, his face brightening again, “this formula gets the grit off between the tiles, and leaves the kitchen smelling like a zesty summer rainforest.”

John sighs. “I want our kitchen to smell like a kitchen, Sherlock. Not a rainforest,” he says reasonably. All of the air rushes out of his body on that sigh, leaving him annoyed and spent. “And I don’t know what exactly you’re on about this morning, but I haven’t got the time to argue.”

He turns around, wobbling to and fro as his feet slide across the floor on the slippery patches of cream. He steadies himself again with one hand against the wall, and then he slips again.

Three deep breaths in. Three deep breaths out.

Without looking at Sherlock, John slings his jacket on and slams the door a bit harder than necessary on his way out of the flat, tracking shaving cream all the way down the stairs. He’ll need to buy some more of that, too.

***

Sherlock hadn’t considered the repercussions of emptying every bottle of shaving cream they own all over the kitchen floor.

It’s...sort of a mess.

But really, this is entirely John’s fault. The mess wouldn’t be here if John had just agreed to grow the beard.

Oh well. Sherlock dislikes the term “mess,” anyway. That makes it all seem purposeless and childish, and it had been anything but. It had all, of course, been part of a highly detailed and well-planned scheme to turn John Watson into the _best version of himself._

The shaving cream. The razors. If John didn’t have them, he couldn’t use them, and therefore, would not be able to shave.

Sadly, that scheme had failed.

So Sherlock sits and stares at the puddle—pool, really—for awhile, willing it to go away through some magical force. That’s what usually happens. His messes usually just go away somehow, as if some mysterious person just pops in to clean all of them up. 

Whoever it is must have the day off.

***

John’s on the tube, halfway to the nearest Tesco, when it hits him.

_“I think you should grow the beard back, John.”_

Wow. Perhaps John’s boring news articles had seeped all of the forethought out of his brain. Or perhaps, as usual, he’d just been too distracted by Sherlock’s allure to realise what had been going on.

It was so very simple, and yet so very, very Sherlock.

John sits up a little bit straighter in his seat, the movement of the tube causing him to sway back and forth. In spite of himself, he can’t help but laugh. Because of course Sherlock wouldn’t have just let the beard thing go. Sherlock never lets _anything_ go, especially if it’s something he wants.

Of course Sherlock—beautiful, brilliant, _fucking stupid_ Sherlock—would have devised some sort of _elaborate scheme_ just to get John to grow facial hair.

The train stops, doors opening to the neighbourhood where the nearest Tesco is. John hesitates for a second, and with a sigh of resignation, relaxes into his seat.

Fuck it. He’ll grow the beard back.

Because he’ll do anything for Sherlock Holmes, won’t he?  

***

During the day while John is at work, Sherlock composes a new data spreadsheet. It’s actual, for-real science. A study. Research. Specifically, the statistics of bearded people’s aesthetic quality and their lovemaking quality and their overall quality of life, absolutely none of which he had made up on his own.

Sherlock loves statistics. And he loves the spreadsheet. And he loves John.

And because he loves all of these things, he plans to show John the spreadsheet the moment he walks through the door that evening. John will probably love the spreadsheet as much as Sherlock does, even though he is probably still angry, and probably regrettably clean-shaven.

Sherlock doesn’t have a chance to show him.

Because that evening, when John returns home, he immediately walks to the sofa and leans over and kisses Sherlock in a very not-angry way. And when he does, he makes a point of rubbing his stubbled, definitely unshaven jaw against Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock sits up a little bit more attentively and stares at John.

John smiles and stares back. “Hi.”

“John,” Sherlock breathes, placing his hand against his own cheek. He can feel feel the burn of John’s stubble on his skin.  “Your facial hair—”

“I figured it out on my way to work,” John interrupts. “Your ridiculous antics this morning. You were trying to trick me into growing back the beard.”

“Beard,” Sherlock agrees, nodding, his expression blank. “Yes. I did do that.” He is nearly helpless, almost completely tuning John out, because he can’t stop staring and thinking about how thoroughly attractive John’s four-day-old stubble is. He reaches up to take John’s face in his hands, running his fingers over the soft but prickly hair there. “And it… worked?” he asks in wonderment and near disbelief.

“Your methods were mildly infuriating,” John says with a roll of his eyes. “But if it makes you happy, and if it keeps you from emptying containers of various gels onto the floor of our flat, I suppose it might do more good than harm.”

Sherlock pulls John down towards him and kisses him, partially because he adores him, but mostly because he doesn’t want John to look behind him into the kitchen where the shaving cream has not been cleaned up. John probably wouldn’t be too happy about that; and besides, being kissed is more fun than being yelled at.

Sherlock smiles against John’s lips as John braces his hands on either side of Sherlock’s head. “You look quite attractive,” Sherlock says between kisses. “Very, very attractive. But then again, you always do.”

John smiles and continues to kiss him back.

“Well, except for the time you looked like a walrus,” Sherlock concludes blandly.

John “accidentally” bites Sherlock’s bottom lip just enough to make him yelp quietly, and just enough to make him stop talking about walruses. “Stop it, Sherlock,” he laughs, “Or I’ll change my mind—”

“John,” Sherlock says, his tone adorably grave and serious. He pulls back, meeting John’s eyes in the scant space between them. “You won’t regret this,” he says almost urgently. “I _promise.”_

“I bloody hope not.” John kisses him on the forehead, and Sherlock can sense somehow that John is about to turn towards the kitchen. So before he can, he grabs John’s hand and pulls him back in, kissing him and kissing him and kissing him.

He’ll just have to keep distracting John until the mess disappears on its own.

***

_One week later..._

Sherlock rolls over in bed. It’s too early for him to be fully awake. But he feels the brush of John’s bearded face against his own, soft and a little itchy pressing on his cheek, and it’s enough to pull him completely from his slumber.

“Morning,” John growls against Sherlock’s neck. “I’ve got about ten minutes before I’ve got to get ready for work, and I thought perhaps, you might let me kiss you…for science.” John moves his face up Sherlock’s neck, against his jaw, placing scratchy-soft kisses there.

Sherlock’s eyes flutter open, and he smiles at the beautiful, growling man lying next to him. “Yes,” he agrees. “Data. Science. Et cetera, et cetera.”

“Mm hm,” John murmurs.

They’re facing one another in their bed, legs in a hopeless tangle beneath the blankets mounded at their hips. They are pressed chest-to-chest, and John has one arm slung over Sherlock’s waist in a nearly-protective gesture; Sherlock can feel both of their hearts beating in tandem. In the length of time it takes for one _ba-dump ba-dump_ of John’s heart—in the length of time it takes for them to draw a sip of air from the space between them, the love Sherlock feels for John hits him so fiercely it _hurts._

“John,” Sherlock says, a near whisper, followed by a happy noise in the back of his throat, almost a purr—a sound that is somewhere between a sigh and a hum of pure bliss. He slides his fingers through the soft strands of hair at the nape of John’s neck, and at last, John’s lips meet his.

Sherlock kisses back, cupping the side of John’s face with his long fingers. He can feel the sleepy-warmth of John’s skin, and the rasp of his beard acutely against his own palms. He allows the kiss to linger, whispering John’s name once again, the word shaping against John’s mouth as John kisses his bottom lip languidly.

After the kiss is broken, Sherlock pulls back a little bit, meeting John’s gaze. John smiles at him, his blue eyes crinkling slightly at the corners. His hair is messy, sticking up endearingly in various directions. It’s dirty-blond, mixed with strands of grey, though strangely, unpredictably (everything about John is unpredictable) it turns into a darker, auburn-brown colour where his beard is.

“Beautiful,” Sherlock mumbles, almost without a thought. “The _most_ beautiful, John,” he adds, because John is.

John gently laughs and squeezes Sherlock’s waist affectionately. “The most beautiful _what,_ exactly?” he asks.

Sherlock sighs. John doesn’t get it. How on earth can he not get it? “Everything,” he says in frustration. _“You."_

John falls still for barely a moment, his chest rising and falling deep and even against Sherlock’s.

Sherlock takes a deep breath, because this answer might take him awhile.

“Your eyes,” Sherlock whispers, and he leans in again, carefully kissing John’s eyelids. “They’re like two endless oceans held within one brilliant man. And when you smile, I can tell just how happy you really are, because your eyes grow deeper and clearer and even more fathomless.”

Sherlock pauses. “Yes,” he says as John smiles at him. _“Just like that.”_

“Your hair,” Sherlock continues as he kisses the top of John’s head. “The scent, the colour.” He can feel himself smiling now as he runs his fingers slowly through John’s hair. “I know that it bothers you, the way your hair sometimes grows grey…” John holds him closer. “But it is a privilege, a happy thing, to me—every day that your hair grows grey is another day that I am allowed to be by your side.”

“Sherlock…” John murmurs, his voice thick and scratchy. His eyes are wide as he stares across the pillow at Sherlock, and through them, Sherlock can see everything he himself is feeling reflected back.

“Your cheeks.” Sherlock presses his lips lightly against John’s blush-warmed cheekbones and lets them linger there as he speaks quietly. “Soft skin, the tiny dimples at the corners of your mouth when you smile—” he kisses those as well, because he can’t help himself— “those are... intoxicating.”

Sherlock’s face moves slowly against John’s until their noses brush together, and he pauses there, still cupping John’s face with his hands. He can feel John smiling, cheeks moving beneath Sherlock’s palms. “And your nose is so uniquely _John,_ and I must say that it rounds out your face rather well, and I’m thankful that it helps allow you to breathe.”

John laughs, a happy burst of air falling onto Sherlock’s lips. Sherlock leans back again to kiss the tip of John’s nose delicately, and John sighs contentedly as he does.

“Your lips are beautiful, too,” he says as he kisses John’s bottom lip gently, and then kisses the corner of his mouth. “... because they are warm and soft and pink. But most of all,” he whispers almost brokenly, “they are beautiful because they kiss me.”

Sherlock places another kiss on John’s mouth, more deeply this time, and John eagerly kisses him back, stroking Sherlock’s side with his fingertips and smiling underneath Sherlock’s lips.

“And last but not least, John,” Sherlock says, pulling away with quite an effort. "The beard." He kisses the grey and auburn whiskers on the left side of John’s face, on the right side, dusting soft kisses up and down the soft hair there. “Not only is it almost inexplicably, erm… hot—“ John laughs again. “I love it because you grew it for me, even though I was quite bothersome about it.” He grins. “And that is just one reminder—one of many—of how much you love me.”

“I do,” John murmurs. “Do love you.”

Sherlock barely lets him finish his sentence before he tips his head forward, sealing their mouths back together. Their kiss is warm, and deep; it’s an understanding, a promise of devotion. As their tongues meet questingly, Sherlock can feel his entire body melting down into the mattress. He clutches at John tightly, letting John kiss and kiss and kiss him as he kiss kiss kisses John back.

“So do you see, John?” Sherlock asks without pulling his mouth completely away. “Do you see how you are the _most_ beautiful?”

The words buzz against John’s lips, and John kisses them up, smiling as he takes them.

“I see it.” John’s hands slide beneath the hem of Sherlock’s shirt to rest comfortingly against the dip of his waist. “They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and when I see what you behold in me, I can’t _help_ but feel it. It’s in the way you look at me, the way you kiss me, the way you hold me, and the way you simply breathe around me." John nuzzles his nose against Sherlock’s, and Sherlock turns his head to rub his cheek against John’s beard.

“So if I _am_ beautiful, Sherlock,” John concludes, “it’s merely because you make me so.”

“Good,” Sherlock says, and kisses him again. “And if your love for me means that I get to have an influence on your aesthetic choices,” he continues slyly, “there may happen to be certain jumpers that you own that I feel should be reconsidered—”

“Don’t push your luck, Love,” John interrupts. “You’d better not be getting any ideas or...scheming against my jumpers.”

Sherlock falls quiet.

John kisses the tip of Sherlock’s nose softly before taking his hand and pulling him out of bed to go make tea. And as the two walk across 221B, they pass one of John’s jumpers thrown over the back of the sofa. And it’s so very ugly, but Sherlock tries to suppress every good idea and scheme that floods his mind.

If that isn’t love, Sherlock thinks, he’s not really sure what is.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story that FinAmour and unicornpoe wrote together in person. They wrote it one warm August afternoon at a cafe in Times Square. They had written together many times before, but only through a computer screen, so they will always hold the memory of this particular story rather dear. <3


End file.
